


Through Your Eyes

by romanfunkboy



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pain, Unrequited Love, and death, descriptions of a crash, francois too pure for this world, no beta we die like men, quite subtle, this is pain, vaguely supernatual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29535504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanfunkboy/pseuds/romanfunkboy
Summary: Francois sees other people’s futures through their eyes when he touches them sometimes.
Relationships: François Cevert/Jackie Stewart, Helen Stewart/Jackie Stewart
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Through Your Eyes

When he was younger, he remembered wrestling with some of the boys in the neighbourhood. They tumbled about in the grass playfully, laughing and giggling as their clothes started to stain with dirt and mud. Francois grabs onto his friend’s arm and suddenly he is transported onto a port, with boats sailing far far away in the ocean before him. He stares, confused by his surroundings and looks down. Apparently he was also halfway through eating an ice cream. Suddenly a seagull swoops down right in his face and he shouts in surprise, dropping his ice cream into the sea. 

“Francois!” 

He blinks and realises he is back in the field, lying face up on the grass. His friends were standing around him in a circle, smiling albeit nervously. 

“What are you doing? You just laid down and stared at nothing,” one of them asked.

“You’re so weird, Francois,” another complained. 

He sits up and scratches the back of his head, “I had a really strange dream.”

“What? While you were awake?” 

They all laugh at him while Francois pouts sullenly, not liking how he was suddenly the butt of their jokes. Weeks later, that friend whose arm he grabbed came back from a trip to Italy and regaled him of the tale of him eating an ice cream by the sea on a port, when suddenly a seagull spooked him and caused him to drop his cold confectionery into the sea. 

The pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place for Francois. 

\---

By the time he became a teenager, he got used to the sudden flashes of vision of other people’s future whenever he touches them. Most of the time it is nonsensical, or so out of context that he wouldn’t have been able to figure out their meanings anyways. 

Sometimes he was transported to a warm fireplace in a university dormitory. Another time he finds himself running into a cafe to seek shelter from the rain on a street of an unknown city. Once, he kissed a girl he had a crush on in school and he was transported to the steps of a church, where he was linking arms with a man as the bride herself. He looked up and to his shock, saw the older aged face of his best friend instead. The poor girl could not figure out what she did wrong as Francois abruptly pulled away from the kiss and angrily stomped away in a fit of jealousy, leaving her sitting on the park bench all by herself.

While hugging his sister on the doorstep after coming home from a long day at driving school, he sees a vision of her kissing a man in a white Formula One racing suit. His protective older brother instinct kicks in. For the rest of the evening he insisted that she should never see a boy behind his back and every potential love interest has to be personally vetted through him, much to her indignation and protests. 

(Once, he touches the hand of some cashier in a grocery store when taking his change. Flashes of euphoria fills his body, as he feels the prick of a needle in the crook of his elbow, and the blood rushing up his shoulder when the belt around his bicep loosens. His parents looked on worriedly that night during dinner when he stayed unusually silent, and he stood under spray of his shower for ages, wanting to get rid of the feel of that heroin rush in his veins of some stranger.) 

\---

When he met Jackie, he was greeted by a pair of smiling eyes, a long nose and a wry grin. He was instantly infatuated with him, practically worshipping the ground the man walked on. He hung onto every word Jackie said to him, about driving, being fast, setting up the car and such. He also remembered other conversations, talking about shooting pigeons, his childhood, his family and his favourite foods. 

“I love you Jackie,” he said one evening in the garage after the two of them had spent the entire day talking racing strategies. 

Jackie laughed. “Ah, lad. That’s not what you say to a chum, Francois. I believe something’s been lost in translation.” 

He strolls away, leaving Francois pouting and frowning slightly at his own feet. 

\---

He finds himself touching Jackie whenever he can, hoping to catch a glimpse of what their relationship could be like in the future. He sees family vacations and grandchildren, future podiums and showers of champagne. 

Once, he sees something more of an intimate nature between Jackie and Helen. Francois spends the rest of the week awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the couple, blushing furiously whenever Jackie taps his shoulder to talk to him. 

But never once he sees anything between him and Jackie, not even a trip, or whispered meetings in the garage. Is Jackie pulling out of F1 altogether when he retires? Will he cease to speak to Francois at all when he leaves? 

“Will you not visit the paddock once you retire?” Francois asks worriedly over lunch one afternoon at Jackie’s home. 

“I don’t suppose why not? Afterall, all my friends would still be there.” Jackie raised an inquisitive brow, “Why Francois?”

“It’s nothing,” Francois replies, chewing on his lower lip nervously. So, maybe Jackie just doesn’t want to see the young and upcoming driver replace him at Tyrrell? To be honest, that really hurt. 

“Anyways, I’d want to witness the podiums of my successor meself. Don’t think you can hog all the champagne to yourself,” Jackie quips. 

Francois perks up after that, his cheeks flushed with happiness. There is still hope then, maybe if he gets more predictions he might see future adventures between himself and Jackie.

\---

The Friday night before the race, Francois bid Jackie good night, clapping a friendly hand on the Scotman’s shoulder. 

Suddenly, he was in the cockpit of a Tyrrell car, the wind rushing past his ears. He was racing on Watkins Glen, the very same track they are racing on tomorrow. Was it raining? The visibility was so poor. A choked sob rose up his throat, muffled by the helmet. Belatedly, Francois realised Jackie was crying while driving, tears pricking hot in the corners of his eyes. The car flew down the roads, the scenery shooting by. 

Then in the distance, he sees it. The unmistakable wreckage of a car, bits and pieces of machinery strewn across the green grass. God what a terrible crash. The barrier was completely destroyed, and judging by the debris scattered about, the car too. He tried his best to deduce the color of the car at least but Jackie didn't turn at all to look at the wreck, so Francois couldn’t see much. 

“Short wheelbase,” Jackie mumbled to himself. 

“Oh god, oh god,” 

That night, sleep doesn’t come easily to Francois.

\---

The next morning of the Saturday qualifying race, Francois glanced at all the drivers around him. The wreck he witnessed in the prediction was so terrible, it had to be fatal. Who’s car was it? Who could he warn? Was it one of Jackie’s close friends? It must be, by the way Jackie cried in the car. 

He thinks about Jochen and the intense grief Jackie endured in months after that. He barely just met Jackie then, in 1970, a new teammate, too awkward and unfamiliar to offer his comfort to the older racer. The very next race after Jochen’s last, Jackie pulled off his helmet to reveal red rimmed eyes, puffy from crying. Francois remembers politely looking away, wanting to give Jackie some privacy in his own mourning. 

He managed to grab Jackie before he was due on the grid. 

“Jackie, we are friends, yes?” 

“Of course Francois.” Jackie blinks, confused. 

“If you need anything, anything at all, you will come to me yes?” 

Jackie smiles, his eyes laughing as he shakes his head, “Yes I will. I wonder where this is coming from, Francois.” 

Francois smiles back, his blue eyes shining. “Promise me, if you are ever sad, or lonely, you will come speak to me.” He can’t warn Jackie about the crash without seeming a little bit crazy, so he will settle with offering his companionship. 

“I will do anything for you, Jackie.” Francois says earnestly, his voice thick with emotion and dare he say it, love. 

Jackie laughs again and shoves him slightly towards the grid. “Alright alright, enough with the theatrics. Remember what I said about those turns.” 

Francois nods and climbs into his car. He looks up while putting his helmet on and sees Helen waving at him. He blows a good natured kiss at her and she giggles in return. The race starts. 

\---

Moments later, Francois was dead. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah Francois couldn't see a future prediction between him and Jackie because there simply isn't one. I just like hurting myself with angst. :)


End file.
